Born July 31, 1909 in Austria, I began to study civil and canonic law at the University of Vienna, but took up political science when I transferred to the University of Budapest in 1929, where I got my doctor's degree. In between I also attended courses at the Theological School of Vienna University. I speak - more or less fluently - eight languages and have a reading knowledge of 11 others, necessary for my research.

At sixteen I began to write for newspapers and periodicals (the first being the London Spectator) and at the age of twenty I was sent to Russia as special correspondent for a Hungarian daily.

For those who are interested, here are a few personal details. I am married to Countess Christiane Goess (Ph. D.), we have three children and six grandchildren (1999 - seven and two great-grandchildren) and live in a mountain village near the capital of the Austrian Tyrol.

In 1937 I went to Georgetown University where I taught for one year. After a visit to Spain during the Civil War I returned to the United States where I soon was made head of the Department of History and Sociology at St. Peter's College. Jersey City. In 1942—1943 I also taught a course of Japanese at Fordham University. At the end of that year I joined the faculty of Chestnut Hill College, Philadelphia, where I remained until the summer of 1947, when I resettled in Austria to devote myself to reading, writing and further studies, visiting America every year.

Knowing all European countries, I started in 1955 to make annual trips either to the Subarctic, the Southern Hemisphere, or around the world- Thus I regularly alternated periods of study with periods of travel in order to gain firsthand information and impressions. In the past two decades I have visited the following countries: Iceland, Greenland, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, Haiti, Santo Domingo, Puerto Rico, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Curacao, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Tahiti, Fiji, Australia and Tasmania, New Guinea, New Zealand, Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, China, Hong- Kong and Macao, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, Singapore, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Malaysia, Iran, the USSR and Siberia, Turkey, Iraque, Kuweit, Jordan, Israel, Cyprus, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Liberia, the Spanish Sahara, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Congo-Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville, Angola, South Africa, Mocambique, Rhodesia, Mauritius, Namibia and Oman. Most of these countries I have visited on several occasions, Vietnam, for instance, five times and Northern Ireland recently twice. The United States? I know all 50 States, including Puerto Rico and the Canal Zone. (Red China in 1983). .

In the field of journalism I have written for: Tomorrow, The Catholic World, The Commonweal, America, The Geographic Review, The Southwest Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, Modern Age, New Scholasticism, Journal of Central European Affairs, The National Review, The Critic, Thought, The Freeman, Confluence (all in the United States); The Dublin Review, The Tablet, The Catholic Herald (all in London). In Germany and Austria I contributed to Frankfurter Hefte, Die Industrie, Una Sancta, Neues Abendland, Rheinischer Merkur, Wort und Wahrheit, Deutsche Zeitung, Deutschlandmagazin, Criticon, Die Furche, Hochland, Die Presse, Die Welt, In Italy to Humanitas, in Spain to Revista del Occidente and Nuestro Tiempo, in Argentina to Criterio, in Sweden to Credo, Samtid och Framtid, in Norway to Farmand, in Switzerland to Schweizer Rundschau and Civitas, in France to Revue de Psychologie des Peuples, Recherches et Debats, Federation, La Table Ronde, La Vie Intellectuelle, Etudes, Esprit des Lettres, Cahiers de Sociologie Economique, in Japan to Seiki; in New Zealand to Comment, in Australia to Quadrant and The Advocate. In the United States I have concentrated in recent years on the National Review (whose European correspondent I am) and on the Human Life Review.

From all this it should be evident that I dislike specialization. I have repeatedly altered the line of my activities in order to attain and retain a comprehensive view of the humanities. My skeptical views in regard to democracy resemble those of the Founding Fathers, of Alexis de Tocqueville, Jacob Burckhardt and, especially, Montalembert whom I admire greatly. My studies in political theory and practice have been largely directed toward finding ways to strengthen the great Western tradition of human freedom, now under attack from so many sides. Recently my interests have been channeled toward a slightly different subject matter the spiritual problem of Eros as distinguished from sex.

This research does not necessarily interfere with my efforts toward a better understanding between the English-speaking nations and the European Continent which, due to my particular training, have largely been made in the field of higher education. I might add that my lecturing in American colleges and universities has been continuously rewarding since it has kept me in live contact with the younger generation of the country upon which so much of the world's future depends. These contacts have been facilitated by my fluency in English and my knowledge of the American scene.

Recently I became special adviser of BROCKHAUS, Germany's leading encyclopedia. My hobbies are photography, hitch-hiking, music, bridge, stamp collecting, the writing of satirical essays and, since 1960, painting (on the right side). I had my first exhibition in 1971 and, to be quite frank, I enjoy much more wielding the brush than the pen.

by Erik Kuehnelt- Leddihn; 1986; died on the 26th of May 1999 in Innsbruck / Tyrol.